Theme 1: Tradition vs. Modernity

"Where is our school of ballroom dancing? Who here can throw a cocktail party? We must be modern with the rest or live forgotten by the world."

Lakunle, The Lion and the Jewel (37)

💬 Highlights Lakunle's obsession with Westernization + his need to impose it on Yoruba community

"I do not hate progress, only its nature which makes all roofs and faces look the same."

Baroka, The Lion and the Jewel (52)

💬 Baroka critiques the ways in which modernity can diminish culture + uniqueness

"Then why do your equations only describe the shapes of manufacture?"

Septimus, Arcadia (51)

💬 Septimus critiques modern reduction of the natural world to mechanical terms, highlighting tension between tradition and modernity in understanding nature

"Then maths left the real world behind, just like modern art, really. Nature was classical, maths was suddenly Picassos. The freaky stuff is turning out to be the mathematics of the natural world."

Valentine, Arcadia (61)

💬 Illustrates shift from classical to modern scientific approaches, where abstract concepts like mathematics mirror chaotic art forms